Half a Savage
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: When Blake and his crew arrive on the planet Horizon, they find it a Federation colony; but how did the coming of the Federation, twenty years earlier, affect those who lived there? The story of Ro and his planet; of friendship, politics and betrayal.
1. Chapter 1

**Half a Savage - Part 1**

"Lights, lord. Lights in the sky!"

The small boy struggled up out of sleep into a world of sudden voices. Smoke from the freshly-kindled torches trailed shadows across the painted designs on the walls.

"What kind of lights, you say?"

His father's deep voice from behind the curtain, reassuring, in command as always. Ro scrambled to his feet, slipping through the clumsy grasp of the young priest who guarded his bed, and darted through to the royal couch.

Even waked without warning from his rest - stripped of his plumes and the heavy jade at ears and throat - his father had more presence than most men. None of the other boys' fathers could have sat as he was sitting, half-sprawled up on one elbow just as he had roused from sleep at the first sounds of alarm, without losing a shred of dignity; without betraying anything but calm, and a sure authority that made of the cloth-tented alcove a royal audience chamber, with the covers that had slipped to his waist as lordly robes.

High Priest, Leader of the Kin, Lord of the Caves. Ro, too, had been born to those titles - some day they would be his - but first they must be earned. Earned as this man had earned them, by years of training as the humblest of warriors and of priests, side by side with the men he would some day lead in sacrifice and in war.

For now, the only status he had was the priestly guard on his sleep - a boy named Porah in his first training, barely two or three years older than Ro himself - and the run of the caves. Even the Lord's private quarters.

The guard by the entrance swung round sharply as the hangings billowed apart, the black stone of his spear-point glittering in the unsteady light, but as the familiar little figure pushed through, he relaxed. The boy barely even registered the levelled spears. His eyes were all for his father's face.

The High Priest, too, had glanced up. His face had been a grim copper mask beyond the torch-flames, but at the sight of the child it softened a little. After a moment he smiled, pulling back the covers at his feet. Ro slipped into the offered warmth, quick as a snake between the rocks, and his father pulled the cloth back around the boy's bare shoulders, where his loose hair spilled over the bright geometric weave.

It was an absent gesture. Every drop of the Lord's attention was focused on the handful of men from the night-guard who had thrust their way into his presence, raising the alarm - at the panic in their voices that threatened to rouse the whole cavern.

Ihtalpa, the foremost guard, was babbling, despite the grey in his braids. "It came down on a tail of fire like the Great Serpent, Lord. And fire came from its belly in the place where it set down its feet, until the rocks themselves quaked and ran -"

Big Uamec interrupted from behind. "It is true, Lord, all true. I saw it myself - I who saw the Fists of the Gods fall last winter -"

"The Fists do no harm," the Lord said quietly. "They fall in flame but once or twice in a man's lifetime, as our fathers tell, but that very fall burns them away. There is nothing to fear."

He was High Priest. He had his mystics. He knew these things... and yet a touch like a cold breeze flickered across his bare flesh. He had not looked to see the sky-rocks fall again before he was an old man. It was not unknown in lore for the Fists of the Gods to streak the sky in a second year - but the lore told also that such an omen foreboded only great evil.

In the last such year, in the time of his fathers' fathers' mothers, war had come upon the people of the caverns from beyond the Sunset Peaks, and they had been utterly defeated. Not one adult male of the Kin had been left alive.

He shook off that memory, shivering. Conquerors and captives alike were one people now, the rulers and the priests of mingled blood, and there was peace among the peoples of the mountains - but the memory of that slaughter still lay like a shadow, even upon the descendants of those who had inflicted it.

We have grown since that time, Movo told himself. We no longer sacrifice our enemies to feed our gods... But there was a cold knowledge also: we are no longer the warriors we once were. What we have gained in ritual, we have lost in savagery. And sometimes... sometimes it is necessary to be a savage to survive.

But Uamec was shaking his head. "I have seen the Fists, Lord. This is different. This is the end of the world -"

The big man's voice held absolute conviction, and at the High Priest's side a tiny gasp escaped from Elaya. Even that indrawn breath was enough to choke her now. His wife turned away from him under the coarse-woven covers, her body shaking as she fought to conceal both her fear and her struggle for breath. Movo reached out, pulling her face against his shoulder, her frail bones all too clear against his arm. At his feet, he could sense the boy, too, stiffening, alert as ever to his mother's pain.

Elaya would not live out the coming winter in the caves. No-one spoke of it - least of all those who loved her best.

The ground shook beneath him abruptly, setting the hangings that walled off the chamber into a quivering dance that made their jagged patterns flow like rain. A moment later came a deep roar, almost too low to perceive, like a bellow from the earth itself. Like the pattering of counterpoint above it, wails of children and cries of fear began to swell throughout the cave, and a trickling of rock fragments showered down from the roof above.

He sprang to his feet. The guards were clutching at one another, speaking across and among themselves too fast to follow. Uamec's howl rose over them all. "Again - and closer! This is the end of the world, I tell you -"

"**Enough!**"

He used the High Priest's voice, that filled the cavern. Beyond the woven walls that marked out every hearth, families shocked out of sleep huddled together, and all eyes turned unthinking to the Royal Serpent that writhed in paint high on the cavern wall, guarding and proclaiming the Lord's presence.

Movo took a deep breath. For the moment, he had them. One moment, to calm and to hold...

"If it is the end of the world, then we will meet it as befits our fathers' sons. I shall go out myself to offer sacrifice; and every man of the Kin will follow bearing gifts, bedecked for full festival. We shall offer what is most precious - and pray that will be enough."

A second of utter silence; and then the voices began again, a low murmur. But the edge of panic was gone. Light began to dance across the ceilings, as more and more torches were kindled and hearth-embers stirred back to life.

"Lord?" The guards were shuffling from foot to foot, and he nodded, gesturing them to go. Young priests hovered at the door, sleepy-eyed, bringing forward the festival regalia. He let them dress him, covering his brief sleeping-cloth with formal skirts and binding the golden serpents and other treasures around waist and arms. There was a sheen of sweat across his face. Elaya dabbed it dry.

She brought the priestly mask herself, and he saw for the first time that she had donned her own robes, the feathered cape and necklace that were hers to wear as High Priest's consort. He frowned, turning his head aside as she tried to seal his lips with one finger.

"Elaya, no. You will stay here - here, in the safest place we have -"

"I am coming with you," his wife said softly. One hand went to her side as a spasm of coughing took her, but she thrust away the support of her attendants impatiently. "I am coming with you, Movo. If this is the end, then I will be there."

She laid her cheek briefly against his breast, dark hair shrouding her face. "Would you have left _me_ to go alone, love - when winter came?"

"No." He admitted defeat on a broken laugh. "No. You know I would not..."

Curled small and forgotten at the foot of his parents' bed, the boy watched them leave. The plumes at his mother's slender throat caught in the curtained folds of the door as she stooped to pass through, and the High Priest's arm slid further around her shoulders, as if to guard her.

It had always been like that, for as long as his childish mind could remember; his mother frail and failing, only her steel will carrying her fragile body on, his father as quick to protect her as to guard his people - and Ro himself a distant third. When your mother was Elaya and your father was Lord of the Caves, it was sometimes easy by comparison to be overlooked.

Sometimes it was useful. Ro lay coiled and still, like a snake beneath a rock, until the last of the attendants had gone, swept up into the growing excited crowd outside. Then he slipped back the other way into his own chamber and caught at Porah's arm.

The older boy jumped; then grabbed hold of him with some relief. "Ro! There you are! I thought I'd lost you - tonight of all nights -"

He swung the child round to face him. "What's going on? Did you find out?"

Ro shrugged, with a little regal air. "You heard, like the rest of them, priest. The world is coming to an end - and my father's going out to stop it." This last was said proudly. "And you're going to take me to see."

Silence.

Ro looked up as the young priest choked, caught between temptation and horror.

"Come on, Porah. All the men are going, and you're almost a priest and I'm the Lord's son - and we're going to get left behind again with the women and children." He tugged on the other boy's arm. "You want to go, you know you do..."

Porah shook his head in stubborn refusal. "If your mother knew -"

"My mother's **going**," Ro retorted.

"The lady Elaya? Out there?" The young priest looked round fearfully, then blinked. "Are you sure you understood?"

"I saw them go, I tell you. She's going to be at the head of the procession, with my father, and we're going to join the back. No-one will know." He was almost dancing with impatience. "Oh, come **on**!"

~o~o~

"A pretty benighted planet, wouldn't you say?"

The young adjutant studied the data on the pocket reader over his senior officer's shoulder. "Shocking, sir. Wouldn't believe the place started off as a Federation mining colony -"

"Oh, not Federation," the Commissar corrected him. "Not in those days. No, this planet was settled from Arcturus Five, back in the Old Calendar -" he paused to pull off his gloves -"pretty far out even in those days, of course. And the inhabitants weren't the most cultivated of citizens, judging by what records we have. Most of them came from a small community on one of the inner moons known as Huancavelica. The colony must have been cut off around the time of the Atomic Wars - and I'm afraid it looks as if the miners went native."

He flicked dismissively at a charred fern that tapped against his boot. Behind the two Colonial Service officers, uniformed troops were forming up on the flattened surface created by the assault craft's landing jets.

The adjutant glanced over the data again and shook his head sadly. "Shakes your faith in civilisation, doesn't it, sir? Two and a half thousand years of culture - and after a few generations on Silmareno they're back to stone spears and blowpipes." He sighed again, then frowned, pointing at the screen.

"Where did all this come from, anyway? I had a go on the trip out here, trying to pull up the gen on this planet - I couldn't get a thing. It's as if the place was so obscure they forgot all about it for a few hundred years..."

The older officer studied immaculate fingernails. "Not at all. I suppose it can't hurt for you to know now - after all, you'll be the liaison officer here after I leave... The data on Silmareno was ordered wiped. I arranged the order myself."

"Sir?" Discipline struggled with curiosity, and won. "Yes, sir."

A laugh. "Don't worry, you'll be told all about it - you'll need to know, to do your job. For the moment - well, let's just say that I came across an old mining survey when I was searching for records of minerals with certain very specific properties..."

The young man's eyes widened; and widened further as the Commissar laid out the full implications in detail. "You mean - these savages are sitting on the future of Federation space-flight?"

"In the long term - yes, very probably. They won't appreciate that, of course. We'll have to get a few of them educated first - get them to see things in a more civilised way. Then we can put a local man in to keep a lid on the primitives; standard Colonial Service practice, that, you'll have covered it in your second year at the CEC. They always work better for one of their own kind - makes them feel more in control, I believe."

The adjutant nodded. "You can leave that up to me, sir. And may I say what an honour it is to have been entrusted with a project so vital to the continuing -"

"You may not." The senior officer cut him off coldly. After a moment, he let out a harsh breath. "Believe me, I'd give my eye-teeth to be doing the job you'll be doing. And right now, I could do it better than you can - don't let's either of us fool ourselves on that one.

"But it's a young man's task - I'll be retired long before the first native ruler takes his seat under the aegis of the Federation, fresh-graduated from the CEC. You'll learn on the job, and later on you'll have help." He clapped his subordinate on the shoulder, suddenly jovial. "Play this right, young man, and you'll make Commissar yourself before you're done. And what's more, you'll have the ruler of a whole planet dancing to your tune. How does that feel?"

The adjutant allowed himself a nervous grin. "Good, sir. It feels good."

"That's the spirit." A frosty smile. The other man swung round. "You there - Section Leader! Are your men ready?"

"Ready sir. What about the other assault craft, sir?"

"I don't think we'll be needing them - do you?" The officer glanced briefly once more at his tablet. "The preliminary survey showed that this was the least dangerous tribe, and once we offer them our alliance against their neighbours, it should be simple to take over the whole place with only a couple of sections of men..."

"Yes sir. But there's more up in the cruiser if you want them, sir."

The Colonial Service man sighed, raising an eyebrow. "Army types... always wanting to go in with overwhelming force..." He traded a brief heavenward glance with his subordinate. "Still, they're excellent fellows in their way. Can't blame them for getting a bit nervy at the thought of a massacre, can we? You can't be too careful with primitives."

"I'll remember that, sir," the adjutant promised, and the Commissar turned on him with surprising force.

"You mind you do, young fellow, or you'll lose us this planet. Never - never trust a primitive! Even an educated savage is a savage under the skin. Remember that. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking they're the same as us. Let _them_ think it - but don't let yourself get fooled. Do you understand?"

A gulp. "Yes sir." He endured the glare for another moment before the other man turned away to scowl at the troopers.

"All right, Section Leader. Get those men moving!"


	2. Chapter 2

Half a Savage - Part 2

"Sir!" A black-clad trooper was jogging back along the column towards them, moving at an easy lope. He fell into step beside the officers, pulling off his helmet to reveal a flushed young face. "Section Leader's compliments, sir, and it looks like we've got company up ahead."

"Hostile?" The Commissar frowned.

"Don't think so, sir. But the Section Leader says you'd best take a look."

The two officers exchanged a glance and quickened their pace.

At the head of the column, their guide stopped them, gesturing for silence. The Section Leader was crouched in a clump of ferns at the edge of the cleft a few feet further on. He beckoned for them to join him, grinning broadly, and handed the Commissar a night-viewer, pointing towards a flicker in the distance.

Imperturbable as ever, the Commissar scanned the scene thoroughly, raised an eyebrow, and passed the viewer across to his subordinate without a word. The latter could barely repress an incredulous chuckle. "Looks as if they've sent a welcoming committee out for us, sir!"

"Some kind of religious ceremony, I fancy... yes, I think we've been spotted. I imagine they heard us coming in. No doubt this performance is in honour of the great gods from over the sea - or wherever the local pantheon can fit us in." He sighed. "Primitives... so disappointingly predictable. I suppose we'd better go and disillusion them." A thin smile. "That is, after all, why we are here."

o~o~o~o~o~o

They came out of the night, like black statues moving faceless in the dark. Behind him, the semicircle of priests wavered and broke. It was one thing to fear the end of the world; even for the bravest, to see that destruction incarnated and closing in was too much to bear. The words of the ritual of supplication broke and died in Movo's own throat. If this was the gods' answer - then his plea had utterly failed... and the gods had truly deserted them.

The creatures moved silently in to surround them, black hide loose and creasing with each movement, eyeless heads gleaming in the torchlight. Movo swallowed behind the mask, his own face frozen in a struggle to show no fear. He could sense the others retreating step by step into a tight group at his back. Elaya's hand sought for his own, and he gripped it tightly, waiting for the end. There was a dreadful moment's pause. Somebody - he never knew who - whimpered.

It was as if a spell had snapped. Uamec sprang forward, and Ithalpa and others of the Kin at his heels, spears raised, and the air filled with war-cries, suddenly unbearably loud, as if to wipe out the memory of fear. The first spear flew...

It seemed to the High Priest, afterwards, that even then they had all more than half-expected the weapon to pass through the dark figure like smoke, or to be turned aside in a burst of flame. But it did not.

The spear struck its target in the thigh, with an impact that drove the creature to its knees, gasping out a sound that was all too clearly animal pain. For a second, the whole world seemed to pause. And then the air was full of flying fire.

Uamec fell back heavily against the Lord, his spear dropping from one hand and head lolling horribly, charred beyond recognition. Other men were screaming on the ground, their bronzed flesh seared and bubbling. All around, the faceless warriors were raising their weapons to the level again, ready to wreak destruction on all who remained; to inflict terrible revenge for the attack on one of their number...

"No!" Movo spread his arms, unthinking, in a futile attempt to shield his people, and closed his eyes, flinching instinctively from the coming blast. "No..."

"No!" A human voice, echoing his own so sharply that for a moment he thought he had dreamed it. "Hold your fire!"

In the moment's silence that followed, he distinctly heard a child sobbing.

"Ro..." Elaya's voice was a whisper of disbelief. She went down on one knee to gather in her son, shielding his face against her breast, burying her own face in his hair. "Oh, Ro..."

Still stunned, Movo turned, slowly. Saw the boy Porah who should have been safe with their son in the caves, standing there ashen-white among the other priests, the young face tear-streaked and blind with horror. He supposed he should be angry; but he could feel nothing. Nothing seemed to matter any more.

Instead he turned back, towards the encircling warriors... and saw the black ranks begin to part. A man walked forward. Two men.

Dull-coloured cloth was stretched around their limbs like a second skin, and their faces and hands showed ghostly-pale in the torchlight; but for all that, they were human. The foremost of the two held his hands spread out, palm upwards, in token that he was unarmed. He glanced around the circle, frowning.

"Hold your fire!"

"Are these -" The words died away with a croak, as if stiff with disuse. Movo swallowed past the thickness in his throat and tried again. "Are these... your creatures?"

"Creatures?" The other blinked, then shook his head with a slight smile, gesturing to the nearest black warrior. The arms reached up, loose hide draping about the shoulders like some strange, stiff cloth, and took hold of its head. There was a moment's struggle - and then the entire headpiece came off as if it were some ritual mask. The face that was revealed bore a dark hood, framing a short, grizzled fuzz of close- clipped hair - and it was studying the High Priest with a very human expression of wary curiosity that was almost identical to his own.

"Not creatures, but men. Soldiers. Warriors obedient to command." Thin lips tightened. "I regret the recent incident, believe me - but even soldiers under orders will defend themselves if attacked."

"One of your men was wounded - twenty of mine are dead." Movo held his voice steady this time with an effort. "Who are you? _What_ are you?"

"We are the Federation." The younger of the two spoke for the first time, taking a pace forward to face the High Priest as an equal. "And we have come to bring this planet back to civilisation - with or without your help. The choice is yours."

o~o~o~o~o~o

Ro buried his face in his mother's robe until all he could hear was the quick rasp of air that was Elaya's fight for breath. He couldn't shut out the sight of the tall heroes of the Kin burning - charred and burning, like blackened logs. And his father, High Priest, Lord of the Caves, wise and powerful beyond belief - his father had done nothing to stop them.

No lightning had come from the skies. The earth had not risen up at his right hand, and the mountains had not stooped to his left. He had stood there, in all his robes and priestly power - and in the middle of the sacrifice, when the faith of his people was at its peak, the strangers had come. They had taken away all his majesty and all his pride, and left him only to beg at their feet like a cowering child before his father's hearth.

Hidden in his mother's arms, Ro sobbed for more than just his fear and hurt; he wept for the shattering of his idol, and for shame.

After a long time, he felt hands on his shoulders, pulling him free. The boy wriggled indignantly; but his mother had begun to cough, and he knew better than to stay clinging on.

He wiped one hand across his tear-stained face defiantly, and found himself staring up at Porah. The other boy's face looked white and sick, as if he had just been whipped. Ro flinched. "I'm sorry, Porah - I never meant to get you into trouble -"

"_Trouble_?" Porah spat out the word as though to strike the child across the face, and Ro shrank back. It was as if the young priest had forgotten all his duties to him - forgotten whose son he was speaking to...

"Are you too much of a baby to understand, Ro? What did you think you were going to see out here? The great Lord Movo putting the black demons to flight with one magic dart from his own lips? Your precious father holding up the sky in case it fell on our heads?"

Porah's own face was tear-streaked. He no longer seemed to care who might see.

"This is **war** - these are the people out of the old stories. They're everything our mothers used to frighten us with over the winter fires - they can melt the rock and see from afar, fly through the air and speak across the years. They've come back - and they want war.

"They want us to march over the mountains and conquer our cousins. And it won't stop there. They're going to use your father, Ro - they're going to use him to rule the whole world." He choked back an angry, frightened sob. "And if he says 'No' again... I think they're going to kill us all."


	3. Chapter 3

**Half a Savage - Part 3**

"No..." The native leader was still shaking his head in dumb refusal, sweat streaking his torso under the gaudy robes, and the adjutant's patience was close to breaking. This man Movo clearly wasn't stupid - and yet only a fool could have failed to understand the implications of the iron fist under the velvet glove the Federation was holding out to him.

He ran a finger round the tight collar of his Service tunic, easing the fastening loose, making a conscious effort to relax clenched muscles. They had taught him all the theories on how to deal with savages, back at the Central Educational Complex. They had not taught him how to deal with savages who stubbornly refused to see sense... let alone when the coldly critical eyes of a senior officer were chilling the back of his neck.

"Sir"- he swung away from the native abruptly, turning on his heel - "whatever the surveys said, if you ask my advice we should just give up on this tribe and go on somewhere else. There are half a dozen other -"

"I don't recall asking for your advice." The Commissar's eyes were cold as ice, and the soft words had acquired a barely sheathed edge.

His junior swallowed, hard. "No sir."

"This is your first assignment, I believe?"

"No, sir, the third."

"Really..." It was not a question.

"Sir -" For a moment he had a vision of the truncated years of his career flashing before him, to be followed by an eternity of clerical demotion; and then the Commissar allowed himself a wintry smile.

"In that case, young man, I suggest that you now proceed to observe closely. There are more ways than one to steer a savage" - a ghost of true amusement touched the thin lips - "as the teachers used to put it in my day."

He gestured the younger man back, and moved quietly to rejoin the native leader. Movo watched him come, his face set in a dull resolution of despair.

"Lord of the Caves" - the absurd title came out smoothly, in true Colonial Service style - "the Federation asks very little of you, and offers you much. And yet you still refuse us your support. I wonder if you have fully considered the nature of the alliance we have to offer?"

"I think I understand that nature very well." Movo's voice was almost too low for the younger officer to overhear. "Under the name of alliance, you wish to rule our people - and in our name you wish to reopen ancient wars, until with your weapons behind us, we hold dominion over our neighbours. We shall be the mere shadows of your hand upon the wall - or if we do not follow your finger-play then we shall be crushed in favour of a people who will."

"You are a man of peace," the Commissar said softly, as if it were praise. Behind his back, one hand signalled the indignant adjutant to silence.

"I am no warlord!" A flicker of remaining pride. "You speak of glorious conquest where I see only raiding for slaves to sacrifice. We have not yet forgotten the truth of war, Commissar. We are not brawling children to be bribed with promises of lording it over those we hate."

"And I assure you we are not gods, to demand men's lives in sacrifice."

The cultural allusion was neatly done, but the native stiffened, High Priest once more. "The gods do not demand the death of men. Our fathers erred - and those who still take captives to kill in worship are no more than savages!"

"And that is why we came to you." Smoothly, like the closing of a trap. The Commissar laid a hand on the man's bare arm, where the rings of brassy metal twined.

"We studied your whole planet - your whole world, Lord of the Caves." He was holding out the pocket reader now, flicking through the display as if the other man could read the data there to verify the truth of his words. "And we came to _your_ people to ask and to offer help... because we learned that you believe in progress, even as we do. Because your people have the potential to return to this planet what you have lost - to understand and bring back the skills of the ancients that were lost when your ancestors were cut off from the rest of their race. That is the 'rule' we wish to impose -" he gestured again with the device in his free hand - "not the bloody rule of a warlord, but the civilising guidance of a wise man, to bring the world back to what it should be.

"My colleague spoke of war because he took you for a savage. If he offended you then I - I apologise." Behind him, the colleague in question cringed in anticipation. The old brass-neck was going to be taking this little grovelling episode out on him in private for **months**...

But for now the Commissar was leaning forward, every line of his body assuring sincerity with a conviction that would not have disgraced a top vid-actor.

"The Federation has so much to offer." No pleading in his tone; only a grave regret, as if for a friend who had proposed to turn down a chance at the position of a lifetime. "Will you not have us, Lord of the Caves? Will you not give us your help?"

* * *

><p>"Help?" For a moment, despite the situation, the High Priest almost laughed. He glanced round the ring of black-clad soldiers that still encircled them. "What could our world possibly have that the Federation might need?"<p>

"Rocks." The Commissar's thin lips twitched upwards as Movo stared at him. "I do assure you I am not crazy - or trying to cheat you. The Federation needs nothing that could be of any value to your people at all. Not even the black glass you shape for your spears, or the coloured stones your women wear, though we can offer you far better weapons and brighter jewels in return."

He held out the grey device in his hand again, with an almost royal gesture, like a priest at an altar. But this time, it was not covered with crawling lines or flickering code signs too fast to see. There was a single image somehow reflected beneath the surface, as if in a pool of bright water. In the centre of the image, clear and yet distant... was a pile of splintered mud-grey stone. Movo glanced up swiftly, frowning; but there was no mockery in the other man's face.

"Monopasium-239," the Commissar said softly, the syllables rolling out in alien incantation. "Ugly, worthless rocks - on which the future of civilisation may depend." For a moment, behind the diplomatic mask, Movo caught sight of an unfeigned eager, almost greedy, desire.

Without thinking, he reached out to touch the image for himself, half-expecting it to splinter into a cloud of ripples. But his fingertips encountered instead a cool, faintly humming surface. Somewhere beneath and beyond, the dusty heap of ore guarded its secrets from them both. But he had not imagined that covetous look in the Federation leader's eye.

"This is something that you want very badly." Long training kept his voice steady. "Badly enough to take, I think, whether we will or no."

The Commissar bent his head gravely, assenting as if to an equal. "True. But the Federation can give as well as take, you know; and we find that alliance is much better for both parties in the long run."

The man's eyes swept over the gathered Kin, leaving a trail of silence in their wake, as if they carried fear in their very glance; settled at last on the tall woman, proud in her feathers, with Ro and the boy Porah huddled at her side. Elaya met his gaze bravely, head held high. But her lips parted as if in a plea to her Lord, and after a moment she could no longer hold back the cough that racked her breath.

"Your woman?" the Commissar said in a low voice, with a note of appreciation, and Movo stiffened. There had been tales, in the old stories...

"Daughter of the Hills, Priestess of the Serpent - and my _wife_."

"And a very sick woman, if I mistake not." The words slid in smoothly, draining all offence. "Jodren!"

An invocation - an oath -

But one of the black warriors had sprung forward from the ranks, his hand moving in a complex gesture of respect. "Auxiliary Med-tech Jodren, sir."

The Commissar's pointing finger singled out Elaya. "See to her."

The black rush, like the onset of winter's dark, swallowed Elaya without a word. Ro's cry echoed the pang that struck to his father's heart.

They had promised help given and received, he told the wayward panic within, trying to counsel himself as he would any other man. These people had the learning the old tales spoke of; and they spoke of healing beyond the skill of priests. He had already seen ill-concealed scorn in the younger Federation man's eyes at their people's lack of knowledge of the old ways. The High Priest could not be seen to voice the ignorant fears of a child. Movo's face was set in a mask.

A moment later, as the warriors' ranks parted, he caught sight again of his wife and son. Ro, in the grasp of two burly figures, was fighting and struggling, desperate to fling himself on those who had his mother in their power. Tears poured down his face, but he made no sound. Movo felt his own eyes fill despite himself at the boy's hopeless courage.

"Ro, they mean your mother no harm." He could see her now, rigid but unresisting beneath the man Jodren's hands. His own blood burned at the sight; but it was the impersonal touch, he admitted grudgingly, of a healer.

Ro quietened at his voice, standing as obediently in the statue-soldiers' grasp as a war-captive awaiting the knife - no, Movo told himself with a frown for the old superstition, as a warrior awaiting only his leader's command... Elaya's dry cough echoed in the silence.

Jodren was tapping his fingers on a box he wore at his belt. After a moment he opened a little door in its side and took something out. He pressed the patch against her arm where it clung and held, ugly and pale against the ebbing bronze of her skin. After a moment he broke open the top of the other thing he held, and passed it to Elaya with a low-voiced word. She swallowed, but raised it to her lips and drank.

She coughed again, uncertainly, once. Raised a hand to her throat, eyes widening. Movo could see from the movement of the feathers at her breast that she was taking deeper and deeper breaths, waiting for the first pain to catch her. But it seemed there was none.

Her head came up slowly, shyly, like a wild thing, with the same beauty that had called to him when first he saw her among the young maidens of the Serpent, and their eyes met as she turned, her lips parted a little in wonder. Then she was running towards him, heedless of dignity. His arms came out to take her; and for an instant, with her breath quick and light and steady against him, they were young again in the sweet shadows of the cave.

"Jodren would prefer to see her hospitalised. But it will take a while to get the proper facilities established here."

He had actually forgotten the existence of the Commissar. From the smile on the man's face, the lapse had been only too apparent. With Elaya still warm in his hold, Movo did not regret it.

The man smiled again at the High Priest's somewhat blank look. "You'll learn about hospitals in time - and economics, and stardrives, and everything an enlightened ruler on a savage world needs to know for his people. Or if you don't, your children will."

He gestured. It was Elaya who understood first. The tremor that ran through her should have been warning enough. "Movo - no - you cannot let them -"

"Even the Federation cannot work miracles, Lord of the Caves." The Commissar's voice was as urbane as ever, but there was a tight little smile on the face of his junior that had nothing of courtesy in it at all. "The next generation will need training in more than warrior rituals and the priestly arts if they are to hold their own in the time to come."

"Training... from your scribes, on your world." Movo, cold at heart, did not make it a question.

It was not only Ro, still held between two faceless warriors. They had the boy Porah, and half a dozen other young priests. Even the youngest of the maidens from the procession, clinging together and trying to hide. They were going to take the children.

"On one of our worlds," the Commissar corrected him indulgently. "My young colleague here will be stationed at the new base to help you with what you need to know - but he'll have his hands full dealing with all the infrastructure in the first few years. Setting up Federation-standard schooling down here would be out of the question. No, your planet will need a generation of fully-trained citizens - administrators, supervisors, security staff - with all the knowledge of the galaxy at their fingertips. Medics for the ongoing care your wife is going to need..."

He smiled benevolently at the two of them as the black-clad men moved in to surround the children, hiding them from view, and Elaya cried out. Movo caught a sudden flash of torchlight as she moved, in the same moment that he felt the weight leave the ceremonial knife-sheath at his belt. Warrior's instinct clamped his fingers around her slender wrist before the glass edge could strike. But she had turned the blade to her own breast.

"Do you think I am afraid?" Her voice was low and shaking, meant for his ears alone. "Do you think I fear so much to die that I will let them use my life as their hostage for my child - for my world? Do you think I want their healing - on those terms?"

"Do you think we would have any choice?" The words burned under his breath. Movo's arms tightened around her, levering the black blade from her grasp. His eyes met those of the pale young man who was to be his mentor - the power behind his throne - and read mutual resentment and ill-will. He swung Elaya round, shielding her privacy with his body from that gaze. Her hair was midnight-soft against his mouth. "Do you think I could bear it alone, love... without you?"

He watched them take the children, the hostages, to be taught to despise their fathers as savages and their home as a primitive world. Heard the first wailing begin from the women left behind, first Ithalpa's wife, then the rest. Held Elaya close against his heart, clinging to that frail thread of life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Half a Savage - Part 4**

"Amazing how quickly time goes, isn't it?"

The main corridors of the Central Educational Complex were more than crowded enough with little knots of chance-met students, conversing with fashionable languor, to make it slow going for anyone not endowed with the ruthless rank of a senior instructor. But the two cadets strolling back to their dormitories after classes were in no particular hurry.

The younger and more slender of the two, thrust momentarily apart from his companion in the swirling wake of an impatient Cadet-Major, brushed down his jacket absently and continued as if nothing had happened. "Your last exams are in a few weeks, aren't they? Planning to go Home?"

"Back to Silmareno?" The older cadet, in his twenties, was scowling, but his opinions were cut off by the youth's gentle correction.

"Back to Horizon, you mean."

"Oh yes. Horizon. That's the latest decree, isn't it?"

Taken from his homeworld, Porah had learned avidly and well, as if determined to shake the dust of his childhood from his feet. In the last few years he had grown into a broad-shouldered young man, bronzed and healthy. But bitter lines on his face marred his good looks, and even among his compatriots he was isolated. Only Ro, gentle and tolerant, had managed to establish something approaching friendship, in despite rather than because of their shared past.

"And I suppose your great and royal father -"

Ro laughed, and punched him cheerfully on the shoulder. "Give it a drop for once, can't you? We're all Federation citizens here - and your marks are better than mine, you know that -"

"At least you've got a family to go back to," Porah said angrily, the callous news of his own parents' rebellion and death in the mines still sullen within him despite the years that lay between; and then broke off, flushing in unaccustomed apology. "Ro, I'm sorry. I forgot -"

Ro shrugged it off, though he had flinched a little. "It's all right. It was three months ago. Anyway it's not as if it was a surprise, not really. If it hadn't been for Federation medicine she'd have gone long since, and I suppose Father and I always knew it. She should have gone to a proper off-world regeneration centre, but of course she wouldn't leave Father..."

Porah could scarcely remember the Lady Elaya, save as an imperious voice to scurrying young priests, and he doubted sometimes that Ro, who had been allotted only four visits Home in the last ten intensive years, could remember her much more clearly. But the boy had taken the news of her death unexpectedly hard; hard enough to worry Porah out of his habitual resentment.

"Well, you've got two days' leave of your own coming up soon," he said instead, nudging his companion in the ribs as they passed a group of girls who were making a great show out of not noticing them. The tallest and most striking of the group, whose cadet uniform had clearly been tailored to her figure, had bold eyes and long dark hair that brought to mind someone they both knew. "I'll take one guess at where you'll be this time next week... if she hasn't got herself rusticated yet, that is!"

The colour had risen in Ro's cheeks; but he took the suggestion in good part. "No, she went on the last ship," he admitted, flushing again. "I tried, but they said she was an incorrigible case, and you know what Selma's like - she wouldn't climb down, not if she thought there was a principle at stake..."

Porah said honestly enough that he was sorry to hear it, but couldn't, privately, say he was surprised. It was a pity, though. He'd liked Selma; even if, fresh from their homeworld, she'd persisted in showing an uneducated reverence for Movo and the old order. At least, unlike most of their compatriots here, unlike obedient, gentle Ro, she had retained a healthy scepticism towards the almighty Federation and all its works. She'd done Ro a world of good in more ways than one, and he'd rather envied the younger man her obvious interest.

But she'd been too outspoken, too vocal, and far too uncooperative to have lasted more than a couple of terms at the C.E.C, even with Movo's influence behind the scenes in what Porah strongly suspected was a planned dynastic alliance. If the sainted Elaya had really picked this girl for her son, her taste was better than he would have given her credit for; but her political ideas were hopelessly naive.

It wasn't Ro's fault, though. And the boy was looking more than a little dejected. Porah, sighing, was about to jettison his own plans for the evening and propose a joint night out in the name of taking his mind off it, when the announcement came through.

You learned to tune them out, in the Federation. The constant soft music of the speakers, broken by intermittent calls to classes, news broadcasts, and the occasional individual summons, had been a background to his life almost since the first day he could remember, when a handful of huddled illiterate children had been landed at the chief processing centre, and escorted to the newcomers' quarters by matronly assistants who'd seen it all before. At first, the voices from the sky had been an incomprehensible terror. By the time the young savage he'd been had acquired enough education to understand where the sounds were coming from and why, he had already achieved the knack of isolating the calls that applied to him and ignoring the rest.

"Cadet Ro to Gate G-6, please." The calm female monotone had already repeated itself once before the message caught his attention. Up and down the corridor, around them, a hundred other students had raised their heads briefly and dismissed the words without even consciously registering them. "Cadet Ro to Gate G-6 -"

But Ro, at his side, had stiffened to attention at the first call and was casting around for the triangle that marked the nearest public intercom. He was twenty yards away before Porah caught up, catching the boy's arm and pointing towards the sign half-hidden down an intersection to their left. Ro nodded. "Thanks."

He gave his registration number briefly into the intercom, acknowledging the call, and came back slowly, looking rather puzzled. "Whatever do you suppose they want with me down at G-6 at this hour? The next flight isn't due in until late tomorrow, and there's nothing else out there they could conceivably want me for..."

"Unscheduled courier. Urgent news from Home." There was nothing else it could be. Porah's mouth had regained its old bitter twist. Ro was a decent enough chap in his way, the closest thing to a friend among those he knew - but the fluke of fate that had made him his father's successor, that had guided the Federation to Movo's clan in its quest to rule the planet, bestowed upon the younger cadet even here on a distant world a mantle of importance out of all proportion to his rank. News from Silmareno - even to think that name was a private act of rebellion - would come first to Ro.

The Federation needed its puppet governors. It couldn't let them believe they were the same as everyone else.

"I'll go with you," he said abruptly, staking his own claim, and was repaid by the rare sweet smile that, as always, left his resentment helpless in the face of the boy's own good nature. Ro meant well, that was the devil of it. He believed the best of everyone.

* * *

><p>The terminal gate had changed very little since the returning traveller had shaken the dust of the place off his feet after graduation, all those years earlier. Battered wall-plating, scarred load-marks across the wide floor where heavy crates had been mishandled; the constant half-sensed flicker of the lighting plaques far above. He supposed he ought to be feeling some kind of nostalgia, under the circumstances.<p>

It was hard to summon. The place was, if possible, even less attractive when cavernously empty than in the usual bustle of departure. His own footsteps rang loud in the silence as he made his way across the hall to meet the slender figure waiting between the pillars; the future ruler of Horizon.

Still half a savage under the skin, the new-fledged Assistant Commissar reminded himself, observing the young man's neat cadet uniform and short-cropped black hair with approval. He may not be wearing braids and beads like that thrice-cursed father of his, but an educated primitive is a primitive for all that... The hulking senior behind Ro - who had **not** been sent for - scarcely even looked educated.

The years that had broadened Porah's shoulders had set their own widening trace upon the former adjutant's waistline, and patches of unseasonal grey at his temples. He was not - at least consciously - aware of his resentment.

"Well, young man," he told Movo's inheritor with assumed joviality, "I don't suppose you remember me? I must confess you've grown an inch or three since last we met, but I feel I know you like a brother. I've been trying to fill your place at your father's side since you've been away... but it's a hard task, a hard task to substitute for a true-born son."

He shook his head sadly, caught sight of the rank contempt in the trouble-maker Porah's face, and hastily toned it down a notch.

"Of course I remember you, sir." Ro was civil, but distant. "You were advising my father over that sad business with the mines during my last visit."

The Assistant Commissar, who until that moment had entirely forgotten the solemn-eyed adolescent who had walked in so inopportunely upon the shouting-match following Movo's discovery of the fatality rate among the mine workers, winced. "Ah yes. We all have our responsibilities to the future progress of the Federation. Your father found it a heavy burden to bear. Too heavy, of late."

Ro glanced up at that, attention caught at last, and reached out in an unconscious gesture. "How is he? How is he bearing up - since Mother -"

"A sad loss," the older man agreed, setting his features into an expression of grave sympathy. Confound it, the wretched woman had been as obstinate about dying as she had about everything else - and she'd been a moderating influence on Movo, at that.

Federation tech could have saved her, if she hadn't been so stubborn about going off-world. It had been quite grossly unfair for Movo to have all but accused him personally of her death like that, when he'd spent years trying to keep her strong enough to curb her husband's idealistic starts. Without Elaya, he'd been left with almost no means of control. Movo had given him no choice but to act as he had, even his superiors had agreed that. It had been past time in any case to bring in a new ruler, one properly trained in Federation ways...

"I'm afraid your father found the bereavement very hard to bear. He became increasingly... erratic. He was neglecting his duties, his health - even the welfare of his people." There was no evidence that Movo had been directly behind that last revolt, but privately he had no doubt of it. The man had clearly considered himself to have nothing left to lose.

"'Was'?" The sharp query came from Porah, who had so far said nothing, and Ro shot a swift glance up at the other cadet before echoing the question.

"Indeed, Assistant Commissar... 'was'?" And the rising intonation was as much for the stiff new rank-tabs at his collar as for the injudicious word.

He bowed his head in the full obeisance due to the boy-puppet's new status. "I had meant to break the news more gently - but yes. You are right. Your father, Ro, is dead. And you and I have a new rank - a new position - a new responsibility to take up. Together."

He took a stride forward, as if on impulse, and pulled the stiff young figure into a close and brotherly embrace. Ro, frozen, made no response. The scorn in the other boy's dark eyes could have cut like a knife.

He didn't see why he should have to put up with this. "Get out."

The words, hissed over Ro's oblivious head, were pitched as an order. Porah had no business here in the first place. He was a known malcontent, lucky to have retained his place at the C.E.C. at all. The worst possible influence for Ro - little more than a primitive. Something would have to be done about him; and it could start now. "Out!"

"'Out'?" Porah's air of puzzlement, as he surveyed the deserted expanse surrounding them, verged on the insolent, and the Assistant Commissar's patience snapped.

"Get back to your quarters - where you should be at this hour. And be grateful I don't report you for being out of bounds."

For a moment the youth looked as if he were going to make an issue of it. But there was clearly no help on offer from Ro, who had scarcely moved, and Porah's sullen face darkened. "Yes - sir."

He turned, with a deliberate lack of hurry, and walked away. In the silence that followed, the receding sound of his steps could be heard until the closing thump of the airlocks as gate G-6 cycled.

Only then did the other man turn his attention to Ro, stepping back and setting his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Forgive me. I would not have told you in such a way... if the choice had remained mine."

Ro took a deep breath and seemed to register the words at last. "Were you there - at the end? Did he leave any message?"

"Alas, no. We were on a survey of the sensors. He struck his head when he fell. It was a very sudden... seizure." The Assistant Commissar flexed his fingers almost unconsciously, remembering the ebbing pulse of life under those hands. Unforeseen inspiration enabled him to add, truthfully this time, "His last words were of your mother."

"They always were," Ro said very softly. His hand had moved in a queer sinuous gesture across his breast. "May the Serpent hold them together in his coils -"

He broke off, flushing, under the older man's gaze. "I'm sorry. Self- deluding beliefs for the primitives - I know. But childhood habits die hard..."

Which is more than could be said for your father. That inward jibe was hard to resist; he let his smile pass for indulgence at the boy's lapse into tribal religion. For so big a man, Movo had gone limp with surprising ease... Better, perhaps - his mouth twitched again - not to think of that at this precise moment.

Ro had pulled himself together, instinctive courtesy re-asserting itself. "I do beg your pardon, sir. You spoke, I think, of a recent promotion - new responsibilities?"

The Assistant Commissar nodded, smoothing down the rank-tabs at his collar where they crackled. "Indeed. Even as your father's mantle now falls upon your shoulders, so does my duty bring me here. To your side. To take up that position and place in the Complex by which you and others like you may be guided in what you need to know."

He allowed that last phrase, with all its eloquent implication, to fade into a hint of sacrifice. And prayed, to whatever godless Providence the Federation had left him, that the young savage's education had not yet stretched so far as to encompass the phrase - let alone the concept - of 'kicked upstairs'.

Promoted out of the field. Relegated to a desk job twenty years ahead of his time... with the merest tendril of a lure that he might see duty again "if the situation should warrant". If he delivered Ro in a sufficiently docile state, that meant. Oh, and others like him, of course. Naturally.

He could still hear his Sector Chief's pained tones: "My dear fellow, I know it was an unavoidable situation. I quite understand. But do try to win the affection of this one, won't you? We simply can't afford to write off the colony by the usual methods..."

And so he smiled warmly at the youngster's dutiful congratulations, at his anticipated pleasure in learning from the best. Allowed Ro to make arrangements for the safe delivery of his new tutor's personal effects. Pretended ignorance of the layout of the hallways so that the boy could offer the honour of escorting him to his quarters himself.

He wouldn't repeat the mistakes he'd made with Movo. The son was affectionate - malleable. He'd have Ro ruling Horizon in his own right for the Federation in two years' time... and he'd have his career back. And nothing - not Porah, not the Sector Chief's report, not Ro himself - was going to stand in his way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Half a Savage - Part 5**

"Field duty at last - for both of us, sir!"

Beyond the scorching fumes of the freighter's landing jets, seeping inevitably into the cabin air systems as the locks cracked open, the young official could have sworn - and it was **not** his imagination - that he could detect already the alien/familiar tang from outside. The atmosphere of Horizon. His home. His planet.

"Now, Ro..." The patient note in his tutor's voice was one he'd heard a hundred times in the last couple of years, in varying tones of affection, exasperation and occasionally warning. But it occurred to Ro, remorsefully, for the first time that a posting out to remote Horizon at Ro's own request might have held less potential appeal for the older man than the full Commissar-ship in one of the inner worlds that could by rights have been considered his due.

"I'm sorry, sir." And the words, for once, held a genuine contrition.

The Assistant Commissar sighed. "Ro, you are the ruler here. What have I tried to teach you? The unrest in these last years has been enormous. The people here regard you as their returning prince, their salvation from direct Federation control. By all means remember that you are a graduate of the Central Educational Complex -" his gaze softened perceptibly as it rested on the graduation order he himself had pinned upon his protege's breast with such ceremony - "but do try not to allude to your home-coming as a field-duty assignment, at least in public."

He forestalled Ro's next words with an upraised hand as he began to unclasp his seat-restraints. "And remember: you govern this planet. You need address no Federation officer as 'Sir'."

"No - Commissar," Ro agreed quietly, trying to conceal a smile as he saw the corners of his teacher's mouth twitch a little at the flattery. Even his respected superior had his weaknesses. Lessons in statecraft could have a more immediate application than their authors sometimes realised.

But it was an affectionate grin, for all that. He knew, none better, just what an honour it was for a member of staff to be sent personally to guide a new graduate on his first posting (on his return home, he corrected conscientiously), especially to such a remote planet as his own. But more than that, he happened to know that the Assistant Commissar had not been **sent**, but had specifically volunteered his services for this mission.

It hadn't been mentioned to Ro, of course. Not officially. But he had good reason to suspect that it was true. They'd got on so well together, these last few years.

He'd ended up spending more time on his studies, after Porah had left the C.E.C. Porah had been a good friend - but perhaps, he admitted to himself now, perhaps they'd been right after all when they'd suggested he was a bad influence.

It was funny, sometimes, how things worked out. Porah had questioned everything from the justice of the Federation to Ro's father's own rule; and yet it was the older boy, in the end, who'd gone quietly back to Horizon, the homeworld Porah had once been at pains to disclaim, and Ro, who'd dreamed of Home for years, who had come at last to find himself a little ill at ease in the role of returning prince. He wondered, suddenly, if Porah would be down there with the reception committee waiting for him, and doubted it with a faint twinge of regret. They'd simply grown up, and grown apart.

No, he understood what was truly important, now, for his own future and for that of Horizon and the whole Federation; he'd learned from the best of teachers. He glanced across at the Assistant Commissar, who had risen to his feet, waiting for Ro to precede him out of the cabin, and returned the benevolent smile. He'd had the best of teachers, and for the first few months of his rule he'd have the best of guidance. He was no longer an untutored savage. He owed everything to the Federation, and he would not fail them.

It did not prevent the faintly guilty thought occurring that Selma - whom he had not seen for at least as long as Porah - might also be there to meet him in the hours ahead. He had a feeling the Federation might not entirely approve of her; they had sent away Porah, so he had not mentioned Selma. Not yet. They had been very young. He wondered if she remembered him...

"Ro, are you coming, or are you going to stand there all day?"

The Assistant Commissar's tones were somewhat more testy than usual, and, caught out in his reverie, the young man flushed and began to climb hastily to his feet. But even as he moved the other was already shaking his head and holding up a hand in exasperation to wave him back down into his seat. There was a faint percussion as the airlock slid shut; but in the moment before it sealed, a rising wave of angry voices could be heard. "I thought we had this sort of thing under control..."

"What do you mean? What is it?" Ro was still standing, staring at him. "We were told there was going to be a festival - celebrations - a welcoming committee -"

"Nothing to worry about." The smooth professional voice excluded him, demoting him back to sub-adult status, as a figurehead to be shielded and protected. "Just a minor technical hitch in the organisation. I'm sure the reception will be ready soon..."

"That was no official reception. That sounded more like a riot!" Ro bit his lip and tried for a more placatory tone. "How can I learn to rule if you keep things from me, Assistant Commissar? If there's a problem with my people I need to know. I was given to understand that this was to be a triumphal home-coming -"

"So was I," the Assistant Commissar said grimly, with a glance over his shoulder out into the crew quarters beyond. The cabin door was still half- open, and Ro could glimpse the men of their escort hastily assembling in the passageway outside. "Unfortunately, it seems discontent among the primitives has flared up again. We've governed too long in this place with a velvet glove - now they dare try to lay hands on their ruler himself -"

He broke off, listening. The word of command from the other side of the doorway had carried clearly.

"Right. Captain Ovisco and his men are going to clear the way. The moment the resistance is broken, I want you to make your entrance just as if nothing had happened - head up, back straight. Walk straight down toward the buildings on your left. Remember, these are savages. Appearance is everything. Don't let them even for one moment see you're afraid."

"I'm not afraid!"

A faint, sour, smile. "Then you're a fool."

He crossed the cabin back towards Ro and took him brusquely by the shoulders, adjusting his uniform and brushing it down, flicking a clinging strand of hair from his collar. Lightning inspection over, he thrust him towards the door. "Get ready. Remember your training. Never forget what you have become."

There was a hiss as the locks cracked open again, and a rush of feet outside; weapons-fire. Ro flinched.

But the angry voices from below were ebbing in panic, to be replaced by the shouted orders of his own men, the Federation troops. And there was a hard shove between his shoulder-blades, and a swift admonition in his ear... and then he was through to the air-lock and the exit ramp, scrambling out over the sill - at the last moment he remembered to try and make it dignified - and the landing field stretched away almost empty before him, a wide cinderblock space dwarfing the human figures that darted upon its margins; and all around and over all there soared the tall brown-orange peaks of the mountain's shoulder. The Walls of the World. Half-forgotten, never leaving his dreams. The mountain-crests of home.

* * *

><p>There was a reception, after all. Pretty black-haired girls with garlands; trays of fruit and highly-spiced dishes; worthy speeches from men who were dressed like poorly-made copies of his father, wearing robes and armlets with the somewhat self-conscious air of those who had spent too many years in tunic and trousers to be comfortable in ceremonial garb. It was - quaint. He identified the word with slight reluctance. You could not go back to the past, he knew that, but he could not help somehow the feeling that you should not make a parade of it like this for others' eyes.<p>

Officials were introduced to him. Outgoing Federation staff, some of the newcomers, various important individuals on the planet itself. None of them were native-born, but they deferred to him all the same. Searching for faces he knew among the crowd, here on his own world Ro became achingly aware for the first time in long years of how few of those around him now shared the warm coloration of his own people. Porah had not come. Selma had not come. The dancing-girls watched him with the blankly professional smiles they turned upon the rest of the foreigners, twirling their garlands with mechanical allure.

The wall-panels, beneath the welcoming banners, had been carelessly laid and were beginning to sag with age. The hall was over-full and airless, an unlovely space in the unlovely range of low buildings clustered around the edges of the landing-field that could have passed for anywhere in the Federation. The passageways and lecture rooms of the Central Educational Complex had been shabby, but it was the comfortable shabbiness that came with long use and the constant flow of bodies. This place, Ro saw with a sinking heart, had been shoddily built to begin with and then faded from mere neglect. It seemed there had been few enough causes for public celebration on Horizon in the years since the high hopes of that first landing.

He was almost grateful when the Assistant Commissar came shouldering through the throng, a familiar face among strangers, with a grim expression that drained the last pretence of enthusiasm from the party where he passed.

"Excuse me." The courtesy was threadbare. "I beg your pardon - excuse me -"

He reached Ro's side and caught him by the elbow, plucking him free from the crowd with a grip that bit to the bone. "Captain Ovisco and his men have completed the clear-up operation," in an undertone, for his ears alone. "I think you had better be present."

Ro nodded, and followed him across into the passageway and out through the double doors at the end. In the open walkway between the buildings, it was suddenly very quiet. The sun was low enough to shine directly between the stanchions, and great fingers of shadow reached out across the landing-field from the mountains beyond. The world was tinged in copper and red.

The Assistant Commissar's pale hands looked almost as if they had been dyed in blood, Ro thought, trying to remember who Ovisco was among all the introductions he'd just endured. The name came to him just in time, out of an earlier set of memories, as they plunged into the deep shadow at the end of the walkway. Commander of the troop escort they'd carried on the ship. Of course.

It was the Captain himself who opened what was clearly a security door in an otherwise undistinguished grey block, and Ro, who had become accustomed during the voyage to being regarded in the light of little more than an annoying supernumerary cargo, flushed at the punctilious salute he now received. "I gather there's something I should see, Captain?"

There was nothing to be glimpsed past Ovisco's shoulder but a blank corridor. The man was smiling.

"I think the authorisation would come better from you," the Captain said smoothly, moving aside to usher them in. "After all, it was a direct attempt upon your life, not merely upon the Federation..."

"You caught them then?"

The interruption came from the Assistant Commissar, and Ovisco raised an eyebrow of military condescension. "But naturally we caught them. Primitives, all of them. Five or six were even careless enough to let themselves be taken alive."

"That can be remedied," Ro said grimly, with a little flare of anger of his own that had nothing to do with the glance of approbation his teacher bestowed. The memory of the fear he'd denied still stung. He'd come to this planet with high hopes and an open heart, and their first welcome had been an attack on his ship.

"Quite so," Ovisco agreed, signalling to a trooper standing guard beside a door to their right. The man spoke briefly into his communicator, and the door opened. "Will a firing-squad suffice, or do you require something more -"

Looking at the Captain's smiling face, Ro could guess at what he had in mind. Nascent dislike hardened into disgust.

He turned on his heel, abruptly, and thrust ahead of the man into the room beyond. "No. Take them out and shoot them." The order, flung back over his shoulder, was curt.

For a moment, in the dim light of the holding-chamber, he could barely see. The flash of torchlight directed into the room by the guard behind him glanced across copper bodies stripped to little more than a sleeping-cloth, tumbled limbs, and a clumsily-daubed Serpent across the wall that writhed in the moving light. Recognition caught him by the throat. Warriors in his father's Cave, and himself a child startled from sleep -

"Lord." A man was grovelling at his feet, abasing himself, grizzled hair loose about his shoulders. Ro shrank back, but the prisoner followed, trying to kiss the young man's shod feet. "Lord, Lord of the Caves. Save us. Protect us. Our lives are yours, the lives of your warriors -"

"Get up!" Ro tried to thrust him away, horribly conscious of Ovisco's sardonic eyes from the open door; but the other captives were flinging themselves down before him, writhing in terror... No. It was not fear. The jolt was unpleasant. It was the ritual obeisance.

"Get up." He moistened his lips. "You don't have to do that. I'm not a High Priest. I'm not a savage. I'm a Federation citizen like the rest of you - get **up** -"

You humiliate me, you humiliate my people by your uncivilised display... But he could not say that, not beneath the eyes of Captain Ovisco and his old tutor, with the measured tread of Federation troopers coming along the hallway outside.

The prisoner at his feet groaned at the sound. "Lord, our lives are in your hands. Only save us, your people, from the vengeance of those who rule -"

He might as well have struck Ro across the face.

"**I** rule here." For a moment, words choked him, burning like molten rock. "Rest assured your death will come at **my** hands, from troops who do **my** bidding, for your attempt on my person, honoured friend of the Federation you fear so much - yes, that same Lord you claim to venerate, you the mob who howled for my blood -"

He broke off with a gasp of breath, as the first soldiers began to file through the door, black-clad and faceless, and saw the savages cringe. There was a fierce satisfaction in that.

"Get these men on their feet. Get them out of here. Let them pay the penalty for what they tried to do to me -" He managed a level, judicial voice, with no hint of the tremor that had threatened for a moment to rob him of official dignity, and earned a glance of commendation from the Assistant Commissar that warmed him a little.

Bewildered for the most part, blinking in the sudden light, the primitives were marshalled in the passageway at gunpoint. They made no show of resistance.

But as the squad leader gave the signal for the final march, the oldest of the men doubled free suddenly, ducked clear of the guard, and made a dart back down the corridor towards those who watched. Ovisco had his weapon drawn and aimed in an instant with a hiss; Ro caught at his arm to hold him back, almost without thinking. The man had stopped short and flung himself prostrate in submission.

It was only a moment before he was hauled to his feet and dragged out to join the rest; but in that moment, the firelit shadows of Ro's memory supplied a name for the ruined hulk of the warrior before him, with a jolt.

"Ihtalpa..." It was hardly even a whisper, but he felt the Assistant Commissar move sharply at his side, as if in warning. He did not spare him a glance, his own gaze held by the fierce dark eyes that would not deign to plead. "...How did you come to this?"

Then his father's sworn shield-man was torn from his sight by soldiers of the Federation, and there was only the gasping echo of the old man's voice as he struggled against his captors all the way to the door: "On my oath, we sought only to greet you, Lord. To do honour to the son of your father. But they tried to drive us back from the field -"

And then he was gone. In the moment before the heavy door was shut, the first order came clearly from outside. "Squad, take aim!"

"**No** -" Ro tried to dash forward; found his arm trapped in a grip like a vice. The closing of the door echoed with a final, dull sound, and he tried to claw free. The captain had him from the other side - he tore loose from his tutor's grasp and struck Ovisco across the face, one glorious, stinging blow that finally wiped the sneer from those lips, before the soldier caught his free hand and dragged it up behind the younger man's back in a merciless hold that brought unbidden tears to his eyes.

"You are neither a child, nor a savage - I trust!" The Assistant Commissar's own face was flushed by the brief struggle, but his tone was purest ice. "You wish to be ruler here, Ro - then rule! But unless you are a great enough fool to ignore everything I taught you, do not begin by countermanding your own twice-repeated orders... for they **were** your orders, I believe?"

"I-" Ro broke off, flinching.

Despite the muffling walls, something died within him at the sound of the volley.

"It was my order." His voice was very low, and he felt Ovisco release him with what could have been a laugh.

"Good." The Assistant Commissar's face softened briefly, and he laid a sympathetic hand on Ro's shoulder, guiding him towards the rear door. Captain Ovisco snapped to a perfunctory pose of attention as they passed, and the older man acknowledged him with the merest nod.

"Half our troubles on this planet have stemmed from the military." He was shaking his head sadly as they rounded the corner. "Now, a good Colonial Service training..."


End file.
